4 ms·

with software, it's particularly problematic - the dependency hell: libs, api, versions, platforms, players, os. your software needs documenting, and so do the

with software, it's particularly problematic - the dependency hell: libs, api, versions, platforms, players, os. your software needs documenting, and so do the deps. and if you want to run it/replay it, good luck getting it operational 20years from now let alone in year 3000. when a book, newspaper, magazine is published, a copy is archived with the National Library - narrative etc preserved. Websites get some archiving, but pay-walling is threatening this. Other types of software is very tricky.

fbdab103 3y ago
It is always interesting to me in science fiction how humans are able to repair/reverse-engineer ancient technology from aliens or pre-downfall humanity. If you stumbled across a non-encrypted WinXP hard drive, how would you possibly read the data? Figuring out the right power/voltage, creation of a SATA cable, constructing the SATA communication protocol, figuring out how to decode a NTFS file system, and then how to read bespoke binary format X. Modern humans with a very good idea of how NTFS work struggled to reverse engineer it for years.
- TechBro8615 3y ago
  Our best hope would be exploit devs, cryptographers and infosec professionals with reverse engineering skills. It's incredible what some people can do with a black box system and no tools aside from a voltmeter and logic analyzer. First you probe the chip with the voltimeter to find where data is being interchanged, then you hit it with a logic analyzer to look for patterns, then you start breaking it down with cryptanalysis, which is really about finding patterns in noise. I think you'd be surprised what the best minds would be able to decipher, given the right hardware and unencrypted data. If the data's encrypted, it gets a lot harder, especially if the encryption is advanced enough that it basically looks like noise. But even then, there has to be some bootstrapping process, so we'd be able to reverse engineer that part of it, and then would need to hope to find an exploit in the encryption. Regarding cables and such, you'd have to expect that you wouldn't just find a single isolated hard drive. Even if you didn't have a full system, surely there would be cables and auxiliary components strewn about. And if there weren't, their absence would probably be significant, since you'd know they used some material that didn't survive as long as the material used to make the hard drive, and could infer its properties from that. So you'd probably be able to piece together which cables plugged into which components and make educated guesses about voltages and the like.
- al_be_back 3y ago
  I agree. just think home much effort went into braking the Enigma Code in WW2, a tech developed by a contemporary power, with similar scientific know-how etc. If you've got hints/docs from similar formats, AI could help develop a pattern.

fbdab103 3y ago

It is always interesting to me in science fiction how humans are able to repair/reverse-engineer ancient technology from aliens or pre-downfall humanity. If you stumbled across a non-encrypted WinXP hard drive, how would you possibly read the data? Figuring out the right power/voltage, creation of a SATA cable, constructing the SATA communication protocol, figuring out how to decode a NTFS file system, and then how to read bespoke binary format X. Modern humans with a very good idea of how NTFS work struggled to reverse engineer it for years.

TechBro8615 3y ago
Our best hope would be exploit devs, cryptographers and infosec professionals with reverse engineering skills. It's incredible what some people can do with a black box system and no tools aside from a voltmeter and logic analyzer. First you probe the chip with the voltimeter to find where data is being interchanged, then you hit it with a logic analyzer to look for patterns, then you start breaking it down with cryptanalysis, which is really about finding patterns in noise. I think you'd be surprised what the best minds would be able to decipher, given the right hardware and unencrypted data. If the data's encrypted, it gets a lot harder, especially if the encryption is advanced enough that it basically looks like noise. But even then, there has to be some bootstrapping process, so we'd be able to reverse engineer that part of it, and then would need to hope to find an exploit in the encryption. Regarding cables and such, you'd have to expect that you wouldn't just find a single isolated hard drive. Even if you didn't have a full system, surely there would be cables and auxiliary components strewn about. And if there weren't, their absence would probably be significant, since you'd know they used some material that didn't survive as long as the material used to make the hard drive, and could infer its properties from that. So you'd probably be able to piece together which cables plugged into which components and make educated guesses about voltages and the like.
al_be_back 3y ago
I agree. just think home much effort went into braking the Enigma Code in WW2, a tech developed by a contemporary power, with similar scientific know-how etc. If you've got hints/docs from similar formats, AI could help develop a pattern.